


But, I left a note!

by meanttobeclever



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Coming Out, Established Relationship, ExR Week 2017!, Families of Choice, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Modern Era, Passing mention of abuse, Prompt Fill, friends - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-19 01:32:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11302977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meanttobeclever/pseuds/meanttobeclever
Summary: Enjolras has been missing for three days. His boyfriend has been worried, his friends have been searching for him, and Éponine has been furious on their (mostly Grantaire's) behalf. When Enjolras shows up outside her door with a large bruise on his left eye she demands an explanation. Enjolras tells her "its not what it looks like" but Éponine doesn't know what she's supposed to see.Written for ExR Week 2017 prompt, "It's not what it looks like" Day #2.





	But, I left a note!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to  
> [hesitantPaladin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hesitantPaladin/pseuds/hesitantPaladin), [theconfusedartist ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theconfusedartist/profile), and [TheLord LaMancha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLordOfLaMancha/pseuds/TheLordOfLaMancha) who read this and liked it even when I did not.
> 
> And of course thanks to just-french-me-up and apolloandr on Tumblr for hosting ExR Week 2017! I don't have Tumblr but I like writing prompts.

Despite its tiny size people seemed to like Éponine’s sixth floor walk-up bachelor pad. Jehan had told her the small size makes it feels cozy. Grantaire had explained that he comes over when he’s sick of the paint smell in his apartment. Montparnasse says he likes that it’s hard to break into, though he always manages, and he likes that she keeps her first aid kit stocked. Gavroche just likes the couch she found near a dumpster on campus, he says that it’s so plush that it feels like it’s eating you. The visitors Éponine got often came in unannounced and unexpected but she was nothing if not adaptable, she took the intrusions in stride. 

It was a Sunday night, a little bit after nine and no one had shown up on her doorstep all day. Gavroche was crashing with a friend of his from school. Jehan was away at a writer’s retreat. Montparnasse was assigned to wreak havoc somewhere out of town. The only person who might show up was Grantaire who was still pretty distraught and about Enjolras.

On Thursday Enjolras had left to an unknown locale for an unknown reason. Grantaire had woken up alone, there was no note and Enjolras wasn’t answering his phone. Grantaire wasn’t particularly bothered at first, assuming Enjolras was just busy. However, on Saturday morning he came to Éponine’s a little upset, Enjoltaire, as Courfeyrac had taken to calling it, was new and Grantaire’s self-loathing mixed with some liquor had gone to his head making him think that he’d screwed it up somehow. His working theory was that Enjolras was hiding at home in an attempt to ghost him. 

Éponine called Combeferre on Saturday evening after Grantaire had fitfully fallen asleep on her couch. Her plan had been to force Combeferre to pass Enjolras the phone and ream him out for being the worst boyfriend in existence. She didn’t even give Combeferre the chance to greet her.

“I need to speak to Enjolras about his asshole behaviour immediately.”  
“Pardon me? What did he do?” asked Combeferre calmly.  
“Your fearless leader left Grantaire all alone with no explanation like a fucking coward who can’t deal with his feelings. If he wants to break up he should just-  
“Wait, Enjolras isn’t with Grantaire?” Combeferre interrupted, puzzled,  
“No, he left him on Thursday morning and hasn’t been answering R’s calls”  
“Éponine, we haven’t seen Enjolras since Wednesday afternoon,”

After that phone call, Éponine woke Grantaire up and told him that his boyfriend was missing. The only good thing to come out of that conversation was she could assure R that Enjolras wasn’t hiding from him, not that it really helped him feel better.

That Sunday night the ABC was out looking for Enjolras. Éponine offered to help but Combeferre suggested she stay home in case Grantaire needed somewhere to hang out if the search got to too much. When she heard a knock on the door she thought that was what had happened. Instead, behind her door was Enjolras, sporting a large purple bruise on his left eye. The man had been missing for three days, worrying his friends and his boyfriend buy for some reason he’d shown up here. Éponine unlocked her door and begrudgingly let him into her foyer.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Éponine spat, “Grantaire is worried sick. Your friends are looking for you. They were going to report you missing to the police. You can’t just leave people like that, especially not R. You’re such an idiot” 

“I agree, I am such an idiot,” Enjolras admitted, “I didn’t mean to worry anyone, I just couldn’t get in touch.Can I borrow your phone?” 

Maybe it was the bruise on his eye or the way his voice cracked when he called himself an idiot but something about Enjolras seemed pitiful in that moment. Éponine’s anger went from a rolling boil to a quiet simmer and she acquiesced to passing over her phone without a fight. She saw with great pleasure that he called Grantaire first.

“Hey R…yes, I am fine…But I left a note!…Yes, I did, it was on your bedside table…Look, I’m at Éponine’s…No, no, please don’t-”

Enjolras has to move the phone away from his ear as Grantaire, who had been loud enough for Éponine to hear mumbles before, suddenly started yelling,

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW? I AM COMING OVER AND YOU ARE GOING TO EXPLAIN WHY YOU’VE BEEN MISSING FOR THREE GODDAMNED DAYS! I AM ON MY WAY RIGHT NOW. I’LL BE THERE SOON!” Grantaire took a deep breath and added “Also, ‘Ponine, don’t let him leave but please don’t hurt him, and sorry for barging into your house again this week”

Grantaire’s voice emanated from the phone and Éponine rolled her eyes, she has been planning on giving Enjolras a piece of her mind, hurting nothing but his feelings, besides he already had a shiner. 

“You know you’re always welcome R and I promise not to let your boy go, I won’t fight” she replied with a light chuckle, “I can’t promise, I won’t give him a fairly intense talking’ to though, might hurt his feelings”  
“I suppose that’s fair,” Grantaire said, “Apollo, you might want to call Courf if you haven’t already” and then the phone went silent.

Enjolras looked at her expectantly still holding the phone up.

“I only have Combeferre’s number so I suggest you-”  
“Why only Combeferre?” Enjolras asked quizzically and Éponine blushed lightly.  
“I’m the one asking questions here. One, where have you been? Two, Why did you come to my apartment? And three, who do I thank for beating you up?”  
“I came here to ask for help covering my bruise with makeup, so people wouldn’t overreact but it may be too late for that. As for the questions, I’ll answer them as soon as Grantaire gets here” Enjolras conceded “But I promise it’s not what it looks like”  
“I don’t know what I think Enjolras but you’d better have a damn good explanation for me or I’ll kick your ass harder than whoever punched you in the face. You promised me you wouldn’t hurt him and he’s been really upset”

That’s when Grantaire came through the door and wrapped Enjolras in an aggressive hug from behind.

“Just so you’re aware, this doesn’t mean you’re off the hook, I am still mad at you but also relieved that you are here safe and unhar-” 

Enjolras turned around to look at his boyfriend and Grantaire cut himself off with a hissing intake of breath. The last time he had seen a bruise like that was in the mirror after a particular raucous bar fight over spring break. The large bruise spread like dark purple watercolours on Enjolras pale angelic face. Grantaire’s hand let go of Enjolras and came up instinctively to lightly stroke across the blonde’s cheekbone.

“Who did this to you? I will end them.” Grantaire growled.  
“I don’t like him, but I cannot allow you to kill my father” Enjolras replied

It was Éponine’s turn to gasp because her parents had been bad, selfish, neglectful, verbally abusive, and general assholes but they had never hit her hard enough to bruise like that. Maybe Enjolras’ country club life hadn’t been so great after all.

“You’re father did that to you?” Éponine asked incredulously  
“Yeah, with a golf club,”  
“He smacked you in the face with a golf club?!” Grantaire yelled, “Apollo, that’s sick and assault, you should take him to court or-”

Enjolras cut Grantaire off with a kiss and rubbed small circles on his back in an attempt to calm him down. R sighed and relaxed into the embrace then started to deepen the kiss until Éponine cleared her throat.

“Maybe you guys should stop making out in my foyer and come in so Enjolras can explain the situation further”

The two men quickly broke apart and stepped inside to sit on the couch with Éponine taking the chair opposite them so she wouldn’t be stuck in case if they couldn’t control themselves.

“To start off, this weekend I went to visit my parents for the first time in almost two years. My dad called me on Thursday morning long before you woke up and said that I needed to come home to sign some paperwork. There was an e-mail from him with a boarding pass for a plane that was set to take off later that morning” Enjolras began,  
“And you just left like a dog running to his master and told nobody, really Enjolras? That seemed like a good idea to you” Grantaire drawled.

By nobody Éponine could tell Grantaire meant me, Enjolras didn’t tell him about the trip, spontaneous or not and that was a bad idea.

“I left you a note! And I was planning on texting you but when I got off the plane I realized that’d I’d left my phone on it, like an idiot, and I don’t know anyone’s numbers” Enjolras responded snappishly “anyways, when I got back home my dad immediately took me to the golf course.”

“You play golf?” Grantaire choked out, Éponine was biting her lip to hide a giggle, “but it’s a classist sport that’s bad for the environment to boot, you told me that”  
“Both those things are true, but not the point of this story. My dad is a standard rich white guy, okay, when he does business it’s playing golf and occasionally squash because old rich white men like dumb sports!”  
“So you were in a business golf meeting with your dad, and he smacked you around with a golf club?”  
“No, we were in a golf meeting and I signed to get early access to my trust fund, and he was telling me how proud of me he was for graduating top of my class and getting the internship with Lamarque, then he mentioned my relationship status”  
“Oh…what did he say?” Grantaire mumbled as he instinctively grabbed Enjolras hand and inched closer to him. 

Éponine exited the room quietly and left the two men to talk. She had heard Enjolras parents were not big fans of things that weren’t cis-hetero. It was one of the reasons they didn’t talk much. Enjolras wasn’t out at home and had to step back into the closet when he was with his family.

“He had seen that I was in a relationship on Facebook and got his assistant to creep you but she didn’t find much”  
“Because I don’t post pictures so all he knew was that I did art and have a French name. Well, my self-loathing saved us then. Why’d he smack you?”  
“Well, he started talking about how I could use some of the funds to spoil my artsy French girlfriend into posting pictures with me online…but five minutes prior he had been so proud of me. So, I, well…”  
“You told him,” Grantaire asked quietly, wrapping his arms around Enjolras, his blue eyes were glistening with the threat of tears.

“Yes”

“Then he hit you with a nine iron or another golf club of some kind?” Grantaire asked carefully trying to keep the rage hidden under a balanced tone of voice.

“No, well technically, yes, but it was an accident. He was surprised and when he swung around to question me I was standing too close and he hit me with his driver. Like I said, this is not what it looks like.” 

Enjolras tried to smile as he finished the story because it was kind of funny, but Enjolras was finally properly crying. Grantaire pulled his shaking boyfriend into his arms and let the tears trail down the blonde’s bruised face into his shoulder. 

“He would’ve liked it better if I was cute artsy French girl, huh?”

Enjolras chuckled lightly and sniffled burrowing his wet face into Grantaire’s strong shoulder. Grantaire stroked his blonde curls gently.

“Probably, but I love you just the way you are. If my father wants to disown me for that then-”  
“Fuck him, he’s a bad parent,” Éponine interrupted, “ and I know my fair share about shitty parents. Sometimes, it’s easier to just let them go. I have ice cream and liquor”

Éponine couldn’t tell you whether Enjolras liked whiskey and for all she knew, which was very little, he was lactose intolerant. But when people were upset in her apartment, usually Grantaire, they were offered ice cream and liquor. If people were upset about family issues, her area of expertise, they got the top shelf stuff she hid from Montparnasse in her bedroom. Éponine poured him a finger of scotch in a mug that Grantaire had painted her that said ‘Fuck Off!” on it in a swirly cursive. Enjolras was nursing the mug of straight liquor with ease and Éponine respected that. Grantaire had gone to get the door downstairs and the apartment was about to get very crowded.

“Thank you for being so hospitable Éponine. I know we aren’t really friends but I’d like to be. Especially now that… well”  
“Now that what?” Éponine asked,  
“Now that I don’t have a family. I understand that you can relate to that.”  
“I can’t actually. My parents were terrible; they really screwed me up and ruined my sister, so, I disowned them and I found a new family. I have Gavroche, Montparnasse, Jehan, and R, obviously. I love them and we help each other, that’s family”  
“Hmm, if that’s all it takes, I think we could family, don’t you Éponine?”  
“Maybe, I mean you’ve already got Jehan, Gavroche and R on board. I’ll think about it, but, for now, I’ll just have them over.”

A moment later the ABC came barrelling through the door, they kicked off their shoes but didn’t even bother taking off their jackets. Courfeyrac was the first one into the apartment; he slid on his socks into the living room and pounced onto Enjolras hugging him tightly yelling “don’t you ever disappear like that again”. The rest of the group followed until they had Enjolras surrounded in a big group hug. Her proximity meant Éponine was also stuck in the big tangle of people on and around her couch and she hated to admit it, but she didn’t mind.


End file.
